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February 18, 2011, was supposed to be the day that the world changed for the Buffalo Sabres.

That was the day Terry Pegula, an owner with buckets of cash who loves hockey, officially assumed control of the team that the Knox Brothers founded.

No more poverty. No more bankruptcy. No more getting by on the cheap. No more being the feeder squad for the rich boys.

All good.

Instead, it’s pretty much been all bad. The team is off to the worst start in franchise history and has become a yet another case study on how money doesn’t always cure all in pro sports.

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Two black eyes on the franchise, a 10-game suspension to uber-rat Patrick Kaleta (upheld on Thursday by Gary Bettman) and an upcoming suspension to gong show artist John Scott for his ridiculous Wednesday evening cheap shot on Boston’s Loui Eriksson are just symptoms, really, of an organization that seems to have completely lost its mind.

It dresses muscle and unprepared teenagers, canned one of the best coaches in hockey to bring in a novice, has swung in two years from having the highest payroll in hockey to the 25th highest and may be in danger of having franchise goalie Ryan Miller walk out the door as a free agent next summer.

What happened to a team that used to be universally respected for being the little engine that could?

“The thing’s a mess. It’s a fire. It’s the Titanic,” opined commentator and former NHL general manager Mike Milbury.

Given Milbury’s past on Long Island, he might well be able to recognize the sinking ship, if not the iceberg ahead.

Pegula inherited a team that had record back-to-back seasons of 100- and 96-points and has taken it straight downward. He threw money at the Sabres back in the summer of 2011 — GM Darcy Regier later acknowledged that was a culture shock the organization couldn’t handle — by giving outrageous free agent deals to Ville Leino and Christian Ehrhoff, and re-signed youngsters Drew Stafford and Tyler Myers to big deals.

Instead of responding positively to the infusion of cash, the Sabres haven’t made the playoffs since and are already basically out of it this season.

Right now, the anger seems largely directed at Regier, in his 16th year at the helm of the Sabres. But it seems to be increasingly targeted at Pegula, who has become seemingly distanced from the team and never publicly commented on either the firing of longtime coach Lindy Ruff or the results of last season.

Buffalo News columnist Bucky Gleason suggested on Thursday it’s time for fans to start staying away if they want change.

“(Pegula) can say whatever he pleases, but he’s like many NHL owners,” wrote Gleason. “NHL owners are businessmen. They equate success to attendance. They equate attendance to acceptance. Sabres fans have come to accept failure. For now, Pegula has no pressure to listen to a fan base desperate for change.”

The team has played badly, partly because Ron Rolston is icing a lineup that includes a variety of green youngsters. But the antics of Kaleta — disciplined by the league six times in the last four years — and Scott has made a bad situation embarrassing.

Kaleta had his 10-game suspension upheld by Bettman on Thursday, who wrote a lengthy dissertation which laid out in detail the winger’s sordid history.

Scott, meanwhile, was suspended indefinitely by the NHL for his hit on Eriksson, who sustained a brain injury. The 31-year-old Scott pleaded for understanding on Thursday.

“I don’t think I’m a dirty player,” Scott said. “I try to play within the code, within the rules. This is my first suspension. I don’t try to be a dirty player. I kind of feel really upset. I was sick to my stomach last night knowing what happened watching the video. I just kind of regret the whole situation. I don’t want to be a dirty player.”

Nobody, however, seems to be buying what Scott, who got his coach fined but escaped punishment himself after a pre-season fracas in Toronto, was selling.

“John Scott is an embarrassment to hockey, let alone the Sabres,” wrote Gleason. “He’s among several players in Buffalo, along with their coach, who have no business being in the NHL.”

The Buffalo hockey public and the local media are in an uproar, and even the surprising presence of four first-round picks from the past two years in the lineup already — Europeans Mikhail Grigorenko, Zemgus Girgensons, Nikita Zadorov and Rasmus Ristolainen — hasn’t inspired confidence there’s a plan in place to bring success back to western New York any time soon.

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